Local advocates hope new film sparks adoption movement in Southeast Missouri

Area adoption and children welfare advocates are hoping a movie about a Texas community sparks a local movement to find children their forever homes and to move more people to help children in difficult situations.

The movie “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot” is an Angel Studios and Peach Tree production about an East Texas community where 22 families from one church adopted 77 children. The movie will be shown at Marcus Theaters in Cape Girardeau, and other theaters across the country Thursday, July 4.

In a 28-county area in Southeast Missouri, there are 229 children with no adoptive family, according to data from the Missouri Children’s Division.

Two Cape Girardeau women involved with not-for-profit organizations that help children, are working together to bring more attention to solutions for disadvantaged children.

Shelley Gerard is the regional manager of CarePortal, which is an app-based platform that connects members of participating churches with needs identified by caseworkers, educators and other trusted sources.

Gerard, who brought the CarePortal to the Southeast Missouri region in 2017, made connections with people associated with the new movie. Gerard said CarePortal partnered with Angel Studios to make the movie.

Meanwhile, Shari Stroup, is co-founder and CEO of a not-for-profit called Room for One Moore, a faith-based organization dedicated to helping children in Southeast Missouri and beyond.

She was looking for ways to bring awareness to the local children in need of the adoption when she found out the Possom Trot movie was going to be released. Together, Stroup and Gerard, along with Lauren Masterson, a state adoption and foster care licensing manager, are using the production as a way to begin conversations with people thinking about adoption. And even if people are not quite ready to adopt, Gerard said getting connected to people through the portal is a good way to begin a journey that could culminate with adoption.

Stroup said she met with Masterson not long ago and the meeting sparked a conversation that motivated Stroup to do more to engage the public on the need for willing adopters.

“We met to talk about the children in Southeast Missouri in foster care waiting for a family to adopt them,” Stroup said. “I went to meet her at her office, and as I walked in, I see a wall to the side of Lauren's desk with photos pinned up and and sign saying, ‘The loneliest child.’ I asked her, ‘What is this?’ Lauren responded these are the children that are the hardest to place.

“Lauren goes on to tell me a story about a young boy named Christopher. He was a lonely child, and while waiting for a family, he became ill and died. It broke Lauren's heart. We both said for Christopher we must do something more and that day we decided to partner together and ‘Adopt Local’ was born with the mission of connecting permanent families with waiting children from our own community.”

The Adopt Local push is still in its infancy, with hopes that the movie will inspire others on why adoption is important and meaningful for parents and children.

Stroup and Masterson have been creating binders with pertinent information for would-be adopters about the steps in the process, and also provide profiles for children who are waiting to be adopted. Stroup said the “Adopt Local” research has removed a lot of the work from potential adopters, streamlining the process somewhat.

Stroup and Masterson were pulling these materials and this effort together when Stroup first saw the trailer for “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot”. That’s when Stroup reconnected with Gerard.

At a recent private showing of the movie, four families expressed interest in adopting a child.

“You know, it’s about, saying yes, whether it’s to delivering a bed or meeting a mom for coffee, or whatever,” Gerard said. “It’s really about a movement. It’s not a movie. It’s a movement. It’s about, why are we really here with all these kids here to be adopted, and why isn’t the church doing something?”

Gerard is a big advocate of adoption, but she also knows “foster and adopt are big words, and most people do not just dive in, but after seeing this movie, I have hope they might just belly-flop themselves into this arena. If not, at least start getting people’s toes wet in this water by signing up to receive the needs of their neighbors through CarePortal technology. Everyone can do something; if everyone does something, no one has to do it all.”

Gerard said she is recruiting more churches in the area to embrace, use and engage with the platform, which makes it easy to meet a need in real time. For example, a family struggling with a job loss might need help buying groceries. Those who have signed up for the portal could buy groceries for the family.

“Every church in town should be a part of this. It is a free service to them,” she said. “All our requests are vetted by child-serving agencies who are actively involved in the lives and homes of these families. Each request allows the church to make real connections with famillies and children.”

It’s often through these connections that people eventually commit to adoption, but CarePortal can also prevent or alleviate problems that lead to placing children in foster care.

Church or business leaders interested in using the CarePortal platform can contact Stroup at shelly.gerard@careportal.org.

Those interested in adopting can contact the Children’s Division at (800) 554-2222, or go to roomforonemorechild.org and go to the contact-us tab.

"Sound of Hope: The Story of Fox Trot" trailer: https://youtu.be/sYwYFbVuCtU.